Designing a Game Theory- Based Learning Experience to Enhance Undergraduate Students' Reasoning about Stakeholder Competition and Cooperation in Water Systems
Tuesday
1:30pm-4:00pm
Poster Session Part of
Tuesday Poster Session
Authors
Silvia Jessica Mostacedo Marasovic, The University of Texas at Arlington
Cory Forbes, The University of Texas at Arlington
To address complex socio-hydrologic issues (SHIs), undergraduate students need experiences focused on water resources management (WRM) and multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) that promote understanding of scientific aspects of water systems and effective collaboration between stakeholders who have different interests and values related to the use of water resources. However, during their decision-making process, students may underassess the contextual elements that inform the trade-offs of multiple alternatives that could be implemented to solve SHIs. Particularly, while students can identify the role of stakeholders, their analyses of their unique values, priorities, and reasoning in decision-making processes are often limited. In this sense, there is a need to support undergraduate students in analyzing SHIs holistically, recognizing the variant perspectives of diverse stakeholders, and navigating the potential conflicts that may arise during decision-making about WRM. Game theory is a framework that helps understand the strategic interactions and behaviors between individuals and has been used as a framework to understand collaboration and cooperation strategies within WRM. This project introduces a GT-based learning experience that fosters critical thinking, interdisciplinary reasoning, and multi-criteria decision-making about water resources management (MCDM-WRM). We developed a 40-hour WRM module where students will engage in games where they will learn about GT principles, followed by case studies around WRM, and the application of MCDM-WRM in an authentic SHI. The module is embedded within three possible experiences for students, an online asynchronous course, ENVR 2315 Conservation of Natural Resources, to be taught at the University of Texas at Arlington in Fall 2026, and a Summer and Winter online Workshops on Water Resources Management to be taught in 2026. This poster presentation focuses on the design elements of the WRM module.


